Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience
Author: Manuela Maria Villanueva | Email: manuelamaria.villanueva@gmail.com
Manuela Villanueva1°, Mariana Nahir Vallejo-Azar1°,Paula Natalia Gonzalez1°, Silvia Sara Kochen1°, Juan Pablo Princich1°
1° ENyS
Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) associated with Hippocampal Sclerosis (HS) is defined as a TLE-HS syndrome. It serves as a model for studying memory, as deficits are classically reported according to the laterality of hippocampal functional deficit: verbal material in left HS (LHS) and non-verbal material in right HS (RHS). Recognizing the alterations in neural networks involved in each group is key for studying their neurofunctional correlation.
This is a retrospective and analytical study. Sample: 93 individuals, 25 TLE-RHS, 22 TLE-LHS, and 46 healthy controls. Patients with TLE-LHS showed Z-scores below -1.5 in both types of memory, whereas TLE-RHS patients exclusively showed deficits in non-verbal memory. Resting-state fMRI sequences were acquired with a 3T MRI scanner. Preprocessing was performed using DPABI, and Network-Based Statistic (NBS) was used to compare differences in global brain connectivity, including sex, age, and epilepsy duration as covariates of no interest.
Patients with TLE-HS showed a global reduction in connectivity compared to HC (p<0.01) in intra-hemispheric and inter-hemispheric regions. TLE-LHS showed a marked reduction in intra-hemispheric temporal, pericentral, and left insular regions (p<0.02). TLE-RHS did not show significant differences compared to controls. Additionally, TLE-LHS evidenced reduced intra-hemispheric left temporal connectivity compared to TLE-RHS (p<0.05).